A Chair for the Lair

Super villains need furniture too. In fact, the chair, the desk  or lounge chair they choose can do a lot to help assert their evil authority on minions, and intimidate  good guys (not to mention compensate for any possible shortcomings).

Evil doctor, uniform dresser and cat lover Ernst Stavro Bloefeld is one of the most memorable Bond bad guys. With wings masking his face as Bloefeld slowly pets his white Turkish angora, and a built-in swivel for dramatic effect when he decides to reveal his scared face, Moroso’s ‘Take-a-line-for-a-walk’ (in the tight leather finish) is the perfect chair to plot world domination in.

In space lightness is key, which is why the carbon fiber ‘Surface’ table by Established and Sons has the force with it, and is an obvious choice for the Death Star. With plenty of the ‘high-tech’ cred necessary for a futuristic evil space ship, it is as black as the surrounding galaxy and Darth Vader’s heart. 

A long ago, a neutral Moroso chair fell into a vat of radioactive goop in an altercation with a bent-wood Alvar Aalto piece, and came out a whole different mutation. In a bright green finish, the ‘Shadowy’ has a certain throne-like gravitas with a light funky side, not unlike The Joker’s famous sudden mood jumps. 

Modern on the outside, traditional on the inside, the ‘Dessous Chic’ table by Zanotta is the opposite of the Cardinal de Richelieu, nemesis of Dartagnan and the three Musketeers. Meaning ‘chic underthings’, it has the Cardinal’s crimson color and hidden perversion and would fit seamlessly in a Louis XIII interior.

 Just an arm in a steel glove and chintzy punk jewelry, Dr Claw remains forever hidden by a chair arm and back. A sleek update could be Flexform’s ‘Boss chair’, the arms of which would perfectly support Dr Claw’s visible limb.

Comic super villain ‘The Dictator’ portrayed by Charlie Chaplin is out to take over the world with is associates, Herr Garbage and Herr Herring. As the Dictator tries to be intimidating but often ends up clumsy, The ‘Heart Cone’ chair grand presence yet playful heart shape befitting to the character.

A despicable yet fragile Swiss villain, ‘Le Chiffre’ likes luxury and enjoys comfort. A good place to take a break and have a refreshing drink and pshitt of inhaler, the ‘Grand Tour’ by Zanotta and Maserati helps an evil mastermind relax in style.

Glas Italia’s ‘Merci Bob’ is as beautiful and uncomfortable as Narnia’s Ice Queen. It has the feeling you would get if she peered straight at you, completely stiff and see-through.

by Claire Toussaint Abbiyesuku

Growing Trend

Designers are putting organic into action. Like the mole on your back, or the mold on your leftovers, the following designs have grown, mutated and morphed in unexpected ways. 

Meant to recreate the fleshy overspill of an obese person sitting on a chair, Charlotte Kingsworth’s ‘Hybreeds’ are vintage chairs with upholstered rolls, bulges and muffin tops.

Somewhere between shrink wrapping and a by-product of the birthing process, ‘Xylinum’ is named after the bacteria that consumed sugar to make it, and takes upholstery to a whole new interesting yet off-putting new level.

Carl De Smet’s ‘Memories of the future’ chair is designed to grow from a small square of memory foam when heat is applied. Gershon Kingsley’s ‘Popcorn’ playing in the background optional.

Because every room in the house could use a little fungus, Shinwei Rhoda Yen embedded mushroom spawn onto the underside of a simple stool. Less cumbersome than a planter, ‘Mushrooms ate my furniture’ brings a little of the forest in, and will liven up your omelets all winter long.

Produced partly by robotic arm and partly by silkworm, MIT’s ‘Silk Pavilion’ is the epitome of technological meets organic, culminating in a large fluffy cloud.

Bridging the gap between a little overgrown to wildly ungroomed, Nacho Carbonell’s hedgehog-like chair-like objects don’t invite casual leaning.

Maarten De Ceulaer’s ‘Mutation’ furniture pieces are an experiment gone wrong, but also horribly right. This probably what bacteria furniture looks like.

Like capitonné melanoma in your interior, Robert Stadler’s ‘Tephra Formations’ and ‘Bifurcations’ have an uneven contour and grow in odd places.

by Claire Toussaint Abbiyesuku

Sound Architecture

If you ever listen long enough to an architect sing about their latest project, it might start to sound like a symphony performed by the ‘built environment’ philharmonic. But other than making sure the structural engineering section or the contractor section hit all the right notes, the architect also has an aesthetic obligation to consider rhythm, harmony or dissonance in the overall composition.

Here are a few examples of buildings and the sounds they leave lingering in your brain:  

Half way between sound waves and the strings on a cello, the façade of House No.4 (named like a fugue) by AZL architects has the dissonant cohesiveness of an orchestra tuning before a performance.   

The garden side of the Raigal House by Marcelo Villafane has thin pixelated meurtrieres which make the surface look like it was grazed by crackeling fireworks falling under the cracking of ratchet noisemakers during Carnival.

Situated in close proximity to a cathedral, the market hall of Ghent has an imposing somberness with a deep, almost spiritual echo reminiscent of a Tibetan singing water bowl. 

I can’t be sure how people resist running along the walls of the Nembro Library with a stick. If they did, it would probably sound like this:

The Emporia building in Malmo, Sweden, was just a standard rectangular building until someone blew into a didgeridoo right in the middle of it.

Marseille’s Coeur de Mediterranee by Jean Paul Viguier has clear references to the maritime town it is situated in, giving it a hollow metallic drum sound like the hull of a ship.  One would imagine ambulating around the premises would have the same sound effects as the house in Jacques Tati’s ‘Mon Oncle’. 

Strasbourg’s Printemps department store has a metallic outer skin that looks like the opening and closing of an accordion, but seems to have more of a brass wah wah jazz sound, like the first couple bars of New Orleans’ favorite ‘2^nd line’.

 by Claire Toussaint Abbiyesuku

Chair? Ottoman? Sofa?

Between modular, convertible, configurable, fold-able and expandable, the lines have been considerably blurred between sofa, chair, ottoman, bed, table, chaise, bench, lamp, lounge, armchair… Home inventories could soon start to cite ‘seating apparatus’ or ‘surface element’ among the lighting fixtures and rugs.

Here are a few examples of pieces we understand but can’t quite qualify…

A sculptural cross between a Mondrian and a Malevich, artsy duo Muller Van Severen’s ‘Future Primitives’ series provide seating, storage and lighting all in one angular composition I’m sure Charlotte Perriand would approve of.

Matali Crasset, champion of small spaces and shockingly bright colors, is an adept of the modular, extra space for a sleepover kind of sofa. Here are a couple examples of sofa-chair-ottoman-beds designed to come apart and be put back together, and repeat.

Another creation for Campeggi, ‘Sosia’ by Emanuele Magini is a covered guest bed cum armchairs cum secret sofa that may be a little bit difficult to imagine in your living room, but would certainly start a conversation or two at your next party (on the downside, you may find people hiding in there the next morning).

Who says all-in-one furniture needs a fancy-futuristic organic shape? ‘Triple Objects’ by Frederik Roijé includes a clearly defined chair, table and lamp which happen to share the legs they stand on.

Another Lamp/table/chair, by Carina Van Den Bergh, is part of a family of furniture called ‘Naif’. Different modules line up to create a furnished landscape of recognizable but slightly perplexing elements; a little bit like the first mutation in the evolution of furniture from separate pieces of rectilinear furniture to all-encompassing organic blobs.

If it’s all too much, and you’d prefer to go run and hide somewhere soft, you can always turn to Freya Sewell’s felt pods. Useful for napping, working, or general alone time, this fugly pixie dwelling does not fall under any known category… besides maybe children’s forts?

I wonder if Zaha Hadid was hesitating between architecture and biology for her college major…  She certainly has a flair for the built organic. The intriguing upholstered shapes pictures here are ‘Zephyr’, a sofascape inspired by erosion patterns.  

Although it has a bit of a ‘took-me-five-minutes-to-construct-in-CAD’ look to it, the ‘Dual cut’ chair/table/ottoman by Kitmen Keung for Sixinch is a model of efficiency in the ‘waste not want not’ department.

by Claire Toussaint